This week, The Two Man Game will start looking at what the Mavs could do as another pivotal summer is upon them. Mark Cuban has said there are different ways or “permutations” to ensure the Mavs won’t have a failure of a summer if they are unable to land a big fish acquisition.

Dirk Nowitzki said Cuban is “all-in” on this summer, and committed to bringing the franchise back to where it belongs. There are traditional ways to do that but there are also outside the box ways of doing that. We’ll look at five potential angles the Mavs could work that would be considered outside the box.

The Indiana Pacers continued their development with their new core this season as they took the Miami Heat to seven games in the Eastern Conference Finals. They were able to do that without the services of Danny Granger. Granger missed the first half of this season with patellar tendinosis after undergoing a second injection to treat the injury back in October. He played for a brief stint of only five games back in February, only to see the injury flare up again. He ended up having surgery on the knee and was out for the remainder of the season.

The questions are the answers! Okay, maybe they’re not, but we have more questions that need to be answered. Based off the last set of questions, you have to look at the negative (likely more realistic) outlook of chasing the big fish. I also look back at the playoffs and determine who caught my eye in terms of potential targets for the Mavs.

Here are another batch of questions and answers regarding the Mavs and this offseason. With free agency less than a month away, it’s really time to start getting down to business. This round starts to look at the nuts and bolts of the concept of going after the big fish this summer, Chris Paul and Dwight Howard. It also digs a little deeper into the new plan or window that Mark Cuban announced in the last few weeks.

After making an appearance on KESN-FM over the weekend, Mavs owner Mark Cuban once again took to the airwaves as he appeared on KRLD-FM on Tuesday afternoon. If you missed his initial appearance over the week, you can listen to it here. In his latest radio appearance (which can be heard here), Cuban further explained the team’s two-year plan, more of a behind-the-curtain look at their sales pitch to prospective free agents, what the heck is going to happen to Roddy Beaubois, and how this summer is different than last summer.

There was plenty of gold in Cuban’s comments. When there’s plenty of gold, there is only one way to tackle it.

Here is the quoteboard for Cuban’s appearance on the Ben and Skin show.

The game of basketball has turned into the business of basketball. Players are still slowly learning that fact. Fans should understand that now. The 2010-11 Mavs are a great example of how business could get in the way of a good thing.

Dallas won the title that year and decided that it wasn’t a safe risk to “bring the band back” for another run at the title. Giving the core a chance to defend their title would have been enjoyable, but there was clear and reasonable logic behind the move the front office made. Mark Cuban has gotten a lot of heat for that decision, but the results of the playoffs this year suggest he was right for letting everyone go. As the Conference Finals are in motion, the Indiana Pacers’ Ian Mahinmi is the lone former Mav from the championship roster who still is playing.

Let’s look at what the Mavs would have theoretically had to do to bring most of the band back. Remember, Brian Cardinal and Peja Stojakovic are out of the league now. That leaves J.J. Barea, Caron Butler, Tyson Chandler, Jason Kidd, Ian Mahinmi, DeShawn Stevenson and Jason Terry. One guy to remember but won’t exactly be figured into this equation – Corey Brewer. He signed a three-year, $9,177,000 deal. He is now a free agent.

Needless to say, there’s a lot of free time on my hands. I like to think when I have a lot of free time. I like to think when I do not have a lot of free time. With that in mind, I’ve sat and wondered about various subjects revolving around the Mavs. I went ahead and got my fingers working on the keyboard and came up with questions and answers about the Mavs. Here are 10 of the questions and answers now. I will share the other 10 later this week.

The small forward position actually provides the most depth the Mavs had over the course of the season. The only change they saw was the addition of rookie Jae Crowder. Vince Carter was in his second year with the organization, and Shawn Marion was once again the starting small forward.

The Mavs front office has always been known as a group of outside the box thinkers. They’re willing to come up with three or four-team deals that many other organizations are willing to try to come up with. With that as a known attribute, I wonder if they have another theory that could build even more flexibility this offseason.

Shawn Marion has an Early Termination Option on his the final year of his deal which is this coming season. If he exercised the option, he would be turning down roughly $9,316,796 and test the free agent market. We discussed yesterday the odds and ends of Dallas’ cap situation. At 34, Marion is still considered one of the best perimeter defenders the league has to offer. You can look back over the last two seasons and see that he has dynamic versatility as a defender. He’s guarded the likes of LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Kobe Bryant, but he’s also mixed it up by guarding power forwards such as Blake Griffin and also point guards such as Chris Paul. There are few elite defenders in the league that have that range of defensive ability in the league.

Dollars and sense. When it comes down to it, that’s what it is all about.

There is a lot of work ahead for the Mavs as they look to make the 2012-13 season an aberration and not the new norm in the new CBA world. It is a new world for the Mavs, and everyone else in the league, as everyone continues to adapt to what the implications are with the new CBA. I think Donnie Nelson hit the nail on the head when he discussed it during his exit interview. “It’s not like the good old days where there’s all kind of financial freedom where you can sign checks into the wind,” Nelson said.

It is a big summer, and the Mavs will have to trust their instincts based on all they work they do and they are currently doing.

The Rundown is back. Every Monday during the regular season (unless there’s a better feature to run with), The Rundown will chronicle the week that was for the Mavs, as well as let you know what is coming up for the boys in blue, with a unique spin. Simply put, it is your Monday catch-up on all things with the Dallas Mavericks.

The end is here. The 2012-13 season for the Dallas Mavericks is officially over. There is some solace that the Mavs were able to finish the season with a record of 41-41. They became the 13th team in NBA history to be 10 games below .500 in a season and finish at .500 or better. The most recent team to achieve that feat before the Mavs was 2010-11 Philadelphia 76ers. The last Western Conference team was 1980-81 Portland Trail Blazers.

That’s a great accomplishment for a team that looked dead in the water back in December and January. That being said, there’s a lot of work to be done this summer for the Mavs if they want to get back to where they were just two years ago. They don’t need to be the number one overall seed in the Western Conference, but they need to get into a spot where they’re not having to scratch and claw just to have a chance to make the playoffs. There will be plenty of time to dissect what the Mavs can do this summer to fix what is ailing them. For now, let’s just look at what exactly happened this season.